Tough Customer

'Oooh. Are we talking G-spot?'

He pushed the door open and stepped into the room. He felt along the wall for the light switch. When he flipped it up and the light came on, the last thing Davis Coldare expected to see was the startled, disheveled man standing at the side of the bed.

Berry was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling of the guest bedroom, when Caroline tapped once on the door and asked permission to come in. As soon as she cleared the threshold, Berry asked, 'Is he gone?'

Caroline gave her daughter a wry smile. 'He passed on dessert and coffee. But he couldn't have stayed even if he'd wanted to. He got a call on his cell phone and tore out of here. Dodge went with him.'

'They're a team now?'

'Not exactly.' Caroline folded a chenille throw and laid it across the arm of a chair, avoiding direct eye contact with Berry. 'Dodge wanted to know the nature of the call, and when Ski told him it was official, Dodge said, 'Fine. Don't tell me. It can be a surprise when I get there.'

'Ski pointed out that Dodge didn't know where he was going, and Dodge said he would after he followed him. I suppose Ski saw the futility of arguing. Dodge climbed into his SUV along with him, and away they went.'

Berry sat up. 'Maybe the call was to tell him that Oren has been apprehended.'

'Let's hope.' Caroline sat down on the edge of the bed and reached for her daughter's hand. She placed it palm to palm with hers and linked their fingers. 'You're not yourself, Berry.'

'Me?' she exclaimed. 'I've been thinking the same about you.'

'Good try, but that tactic didn't work when you were in middle school, and it doesn't work now. You can't redirect this conversation.'

'You've been onto my manipulation?'

'Since you were old enough to exercise it. But I'm not sure manipulation is the correct word. It denotes some mean purpose. You were never mean, just extremely clever.'

'Not that clever. You caught on. And here I thought I was being so smart.'

'Smart you are.' Caroline's tone changed, became softer, more serious. 'Also unshakable and in command of your emotions. It's unlike you to fly off the handle the way you did with Ski.'

''Ski'? 'Dodge'? I've never known you to get so chummy with men you've only just met. Although...'

'You're doing it again. This isn't about me. It's about you.'

'Although,' Berry continued stubbornly, 'I believe you knew Dodge Hanley before today. And I'm not trying to divert the conversation away from me and my problems. We'll get to them, I promise.

'But first, I insist on being brought into the loop, because, up to this point, I've been left out.' She lay back down and stacked her hands behind her head. 'I'm listening. Who is this guy? You met him before today. I know you did. Otherwise you'd be put off by his manner and vocabulary.'

Caroline sighed. 'All right, I confess. I met Dodge in Houston a few years ago.'

'How?'

'Through my friend, when she retained him to do some private investigating for her. She was uncomfortable with the whole idea. It seemed sordid, sleazy, a B-movie-type action to take. Dodge, being Dodge, made her even more apprehensive. So she wanted me to meet him and give her my honest opinion. Did he seem reputable? Worth his fee? That sort of thing. I had no experience in those matters, either, but she valued my judgment of people in general.'

'Which friend? Do I know her?'

'Yes, but I can't tell you who it is.'

'How come?'

'Because that would betray her confidence.'

'Did Daddy ever meet him? Dodge, I mean.'

Caroline laughed. 'Goodness, no. Can you imagine the two of them even being in the same room?'

Berry smiled. Her dad had been a slender man, not very tall, but so dignified that his modest stature went unnoticed. He was tidy and compact, soft-spoken, cultured, and genteel. The polar opposite of Dodge Hanley.

Caroline was saying, 'I didn't tell anyone, even Jim, about the straits my friend was in. It was a messy, humiliating situation.'

'Cheating husband?'

'All I'll say is that she was desperate, or she would never have sought the services of a private investigator.'

Berry mulled over her mother's wording, then asked softly, 'Is that why you sought his services? Do you regard my current situation as desperate?'

'Not yet. He'll help keep it from becoming so.'

'He's a street fighter.'

'I'm sure.'

'Irreverent, disrespectful of authority, and beyond the pale.'

'I doubt he lets rules get in his way.'

'He's unrefined.'

'You should have seen him in Mabel's Tearoom.'

Berry laughed. 'You took him to a tearoom?'

'I had to meet him somewhere.' She thought for a moment, then added, 'Actually, he handled it with more aplomb than one would expect.'

'He's kinda cute,' Berry said. 'If you're into scruffy.'

'I hadn't thought of him in that way.'

Berry gave her mother a playful nudge. 'Come on. He's cute. Admit it.'

'Some women might find him attractive.'

Berry grinned at the evasion, mainly because her mother was working so hard at being evasive.

Following an acceptable period of grieving for her dad, Berry had encouraged her mother to start dating, especially when Caroline moved to Merritt, where no one had known her and her dad as a couple. The town had a large retirement-age population. There were a lot of unattached men of suitable age and means available.

Caroline would hear none of it.

'I'm done with that,' she had said when Berry suggested she get back in circulation. 'I had a good marriage. I had the love of my life. I will never have another.'

But Berry continued to hold out the hope that her mother would meet a man who would change her mind. She was beautiful and smart, lovely and fun. She had much to offer, and Berry hated the thought of her living the rest of her life as a single.

'I like Dodge,' Berry said now, almost expecting her mother to challenge the definitive statement.

But she didn't. In fact, Caroline was quite earnest when she asked, 'Do you?'

'Yeah, I do. Warts and all. What I like best is that he makes no excuses for his warts.'

'Then I'm glad I made the decision to retain him.'